


John: How it Happened

by BlameMyMuses



Series: Apotheosis [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:41:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7056667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is an earthquake, and John is awake in the rubble. Somehow finding himself without arms is not as shocking as it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John: How it Happened

You’re pretty sure that this is not how you’re supposed to react to finding out you’ve lost two of your limbs. In fact, given how much you had bled before that alchemist had found you and done…whatever it was he had done…you’re pretty sure you should be at the very least in shock or unconscious or something.

 

You’re a little light-headed, feel just a bit out of breath, but it is so much better than the stabbing sharpness of a punctured lung, you can’t complain too much. Your arms don’t even hurt. Well. What arms?

 

There are doctors rushing all through the rubble, and you think you should probably try to get their attention somehow, but you feel wheezy and can only cough when you try to shout out for help. Luckily, the coughing draws someone near, and you are found. John Egbert is no longer missing! Woo!

 

The move from warm, bloody dirt, up onto sterile white stretcher is enough to do what the bloody stumps hadn’t, and you’re struck numb from the pain.

 

“… not dead?” you hear through the haze.

 

“… dy healed. See? Scabbed…”

 

***

 

You stay two weeks in the military hospital, get to hear all about automail, and other prosthetics options, are surrounded by wounded soldiers and civilians alike( because civilian hospitals were too full), and make friends with all the nurses. They haven’t found your dad yet, but you know they will.

 

It had been an earthquake. The ground below the city had fallen out from beneath it as if someone had dug a massive trench right beneath everyone’s feet. Strangely, there hadn’t been any kind of aftershocks, and so everyone walks as if on needles, waiting for the other boot to fall.

 

You’d determined early on that life in a hospital was boring and depressing, and so had made it your mission to lighten everyone’s spirits in whatever way you could. Without arms, you needed extra help setting up pranks, but luckily being a fourteen-year-old stuck in a hospital with a bunch of grizzled soldiers (seriously—so much man grit! Even the lady soldiers have  _ so much man grit! _ ) means everyone pretty much goes out of their way to help you, to make sure you’re entertained.

 

… and if that means engineering some loose floorboards to act as springboards…well. What the hospital staff doesn’t know won’t hurt them.

 

***

 

It’s the third week, and you have a custard pie. It’s not  _ quite  _ as effective as a pie tin full of shaving cream, but it gets nice lift when launched, and also they’re available in the hospital cafeteria, which shaving cream is not, and you have no legitimate excuse to ask for shaving cream yet, so you make due.

 

You have a floorboard perfectly aimed to throw pies at the door, with one already in place, and no one has yet figured out how you keep managing to pry it loose. Someone had been by two days before to let you know that your dad still hadn’t been found, but that they had started to put up posters, and if that didn’t work, your family in Xing would be notified of your circumstances, and maybe you’d have to go live with them or a guardian of their choosing. You hoped that, if it came down to it, you could stay in Amestris, if only because the only Xingese you remembered from Nanna was “More cake, please,” “Thank you,” and what essentially translated into a very tame “shucks, buster” which was  _ not  _ the sort of cussing you’d really wanted to learn, but was the only thing she’d been willing to teach you.

 

There is a knock on the door, and no one opens it right away. The nurses have learned to be wary, at last, it seems. You grin, and hop up from the bed to get into position.

 

“ Come in!” you call. You have to hide the grin from your voice, and only barely succeed. The door swings open.

 

It’s your dad. Your  _ dad _ . They found him.  _ He _ found  _ you! _

 

You swallow the lump in your throat, beaming at him, and can’t resist because the set-up is too damn perfect.

 

“ Hey, Dad,” you say. “Look! No hands!”

 

And you launch the pie with your foot on the array one of the injured state alchemists had drawn up for you.

 

It flies perfectly, sails in an awesome arch, and strikes your dad square in the face.

 

There is a long moment of silence as the custard drips down your dad’s nose and chin.

 

“ Son,” he says, and your lip trembles when you hear how his voice cracks because you are  _ so relieved _ . He steps up to you, smiling fit to burst. “I am so,  _ so  _ proud.” Shucks, buster, you’re fucking crying like a baby. Your  _ dad _ … You lean into his shoulder to hide your face.

 

And when he hugs you, he hugs you hard enough to make up for the hold you can’t return.

 


End file.
